Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sea Lions But Were Afraid to Ask

On their satisfying debut LP, this C86-nodding California noise-pop quintet mixes the familiar with the unexpected.

Out of all the post-millennial bands that have largely benefited from the C86 tape's renewed interest, Sea Lions are one of the few who actually sound like they were pulled directly from the compilation rather than a band adopting a vogue influence. The treble-heavy production is parallel to that of first-wave twee-punk. The guitars go way past indie pop's minimum quota for jangle. It's quite feasible that if you played Sea Lions for someone who wasn't aware the album was released near the end of 2011, they'd assume that they were a super-obscure band from the early or mid 1980s.

There's a stigma that comes along with having a style that represents a very specific time period, a school of thought that says anything thoroughly nailing a past era is regressive and harmful to the forward movement of music. But those influences had to come from somewhere, so why not cut out the middleman and go straight to the source? Especially if you can find a way to infuse it with your own personality. In that sense, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sea Lions But Were Afraid to Ask makes for a boilerplate, but immensely satisfying, noise-pop record. Dissonant and angular instrumentals are scattered throughout, giving the album a light experimental edge. Major-key romps are punctuated with glockenspiel, woozy tremolo bar work, and noisy guitar chicken-scratch. The ballads shuffle like 1960s R&B classics.

Frontman Adrian Pillado is a songwriter who closely adheres to the sensibilities of DIY twee. He has a playful and unsophisticated baritone that suggests either a less dour Ian Curtis or a more English Calvin Johnson. His lyrics focus on the awkwardness of young relationships, the allure of childhood, and burrowing his head underneath as many blankets and pillows as he can find. Sometimes he gets so caught up in his own neuroses that his voice trails off-key, but it's never in a way that feels like self-pity or melodrama. Pillado is charming and full enough of character to make his songs consistently entertaining, a trait he shares with the frontmen of all his influences, from the obvious ones (like Beat Happening and Orange Juice) to the less expected (like Crass).

Part of Everything's success is that it follows the time-honored indie pop tradition of being short and sweet. Brevity and brisk pacing are characteristics the band seems quite familiar with: They manage to cram 15 tracks into a time frame of 29 minutes, with only three of the album's songs passing the 2:30 mark and none that even grazes three minutes. In fact, a few of the shorter tunes grind to a halt at completely unexpected endpoints, which is a jarring but effective way to get a listener's attention. The way these songs end doesn't make them sound unfinished in any way, but it's apparent that the band would rather not coast on a good riff or melody long enough to lose its luster.

Almost any band could take only the basic elements of indie pop and make a listenable album. Many, many bands already have. What makes Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sea Lions But Were Afraid to Ask above-average is the band that made it, one willing to adjust its sound so it's slightly off-center, reverent of the past but not to the point where it completely hinders their ability to push things forward.